I don’t know if any of you current posters were around for that, but if so, I just can’t understand how you can call yourselves Yankee fans. Pathetic quitters is what you sounded like. Of the lame posts I could stand to read, the only person who had any confidence in the Yankees at that point was a (yeesh) Red Sox fan.Jeter is King

Quite the attitude you have SG.
Maybe you should shitcan this blog and join Steve at WasWatching?
Or follow some other stupid team that has made the PS 15 of the last 17 years.
Jeez… and some people think Yankee fans are entitled.OldYanksFan

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

I figured I had a long offseason ahead of me if I was going to do everything in my power to make the Yankees look better than they are. The thing that needed to be done first was put the Yankees in the context of the rest of MLB. So I’ve been working on building my CAIRO season simulation disk and gave it a trial run last night. This was current through rosters as of yesterday morning.

As the title says, this is extremely early and completely useless so think of it more as a goof than anything too serious. So using CAIRO v0.2 which I’ll probably post tomorrow and the depth charts from MLB Depth Charts and Rotochamp as a rough gauge of playing time, here’s how the 2014 MLB season looks as of November 20.

Let me reiterate, these are extremely early and completely useless. There are literally hundreds of free agents still out there to be signed, and trades to be made, and players to be injured. There’s also the traditional error bars that projections have, which means you should probably look at this with a 10 game swing on either side of a team’s average projected win total, particularly right now with so much roster churn to come.

But if you are a Yankee fan, like I used to be, this is pretty disheartening. It’s not surprising, and if you put the lineup and pitching staff together based on how they project in 2014 you will see they are about as far from championship caliber as any team in the American League. Maybe moreso considering the relative strength of their division.

No, the Astros are not an AL team, even if they use a DH.

Don’t worry though, the Yankees will sign Carlos Beltran and he’ll make them a 95 win team.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The 2013 MLB Projection Blowout

With Opening Day rapidly approaching, it’s time for my 2013 MLB projected standings blowout. The idea behind this series of posts is to try and project how the 2013 MLB season might look given what we think we may know right now. I’ve been doing a version of this since 2005, and you can see the results by looking at the following links.

A quick look at the previous seasons shows that the results are hit and miss. Projections don’t pretend to be omnisicent, so they can only tell us so much about how things play out. Hence the following disclaimers.

1) Projection systems are inherently limited in their accuracy, particularly for pitchers. We can get a rough idea of how most players will perform by looking at their past histories and how similar players have performed, and factoring in aging and regression, but abilities/talent can change in ways that can’t be forecasted.

2) Playing time distribution in these simulations will not match actual 2013 playing time. I used the rosters and depth charts available at MLB Depth Charts plus whatever I’ve read over the offseason as my guide to set these up as realistically as possible, but it’s a possible source of error. Rosters were set up to have 35-40 or so active players per team, and to get a reasonable amount of playing time from the bench and extra pitchers, to more closely model reality. Basically, no players are set to play more than 90% of the time, starting catchers are restricted to at most about 75% of the games, and I’ve made sure teams get a non-trivial amount of starts from their 6-8 starters. The healthier a team is in 2013, the more likely they will be to exceed these projections, and vice versa.

3) We cannot predict injuries and/or roster changes. These simulations do try to adjust projected playing time based on past health issues, so someone like Erik Bedard is not expected to make 30 starts. I’ve also included random injuries which may lead to some of the outlying results you see, but there’s no way to account for all the fluctuations that will happen with rosters this season.

4) These are NOT my predictions. These are projections based on running a computer simulation hundreds of thousands of times with projection data that is inherently limited. If your favorite team doesn’t project well, don’t blame me, blame the computers and spreadsheets that projected them. I guess you can blame me for the CAIRO results if you want, otherwise you can take heart in the 2006 Tigers projecting to win 80, the 2010 Giants projecting to go 81-81 or the 2012 Orioles projecting to win 70 games. These are not meant to tell you how the season is going to play out. I prefer to think of them more as a starting point for discussion, with a range of something like 10 wins in either direction based on how things actually end up playing out. You can look at them and argue about why you think some teams will be better or worse.

5) Since this is all automated, I don’t break ties. I simply award all ties a share of either the division title or wild cards when it happens which is why you may see some funny decimal places in the standings that follow.

6) These are the averages of hundreds of thousands of simulated seasons, so the results will tend to regress towards the mean. The final standings will not look like this, because they only play the season once. If the first place team in a division projects to win 85 games, it doesn’t mean 85 wins will win the division, but I’ll get into that into more detail further down in this post.

7) Even if you knew exactly what every player would do, and exactly how much they’d play, you would not get the standings right. A few one run games or a disparate performance in more crucial situations can cause any team to over/under achieve what their stats say they should have done. So if that’s true, you have to figure that since we have no idea what any individual player do or how much they’ll play, the margin of error on these is massive.

There’s too much stuff to fit it all into one post, so I’ve created a separate post for each projection system. I will use this post to show the results of the aggregate/average of all the projections. You can follow the links below to look at the individual projection systems’ results.

This year, I’m using five different projection systems. You can click on each of the links below to get some more information about each system and to see how their specific projected standings look.

I should note that the Marcel projections used here were generated using Python code provided by Jeff Sackmann and are not the “official” projections, although they should be almost identical. I’ll also mention that ZiPS will have its own projected standings so these should not be considered the official version. Playing time distribution, run environments and park factors may cause some divergence between what ZiPS forecasts and what mine say. When in doubt, go with the official version.

With all the disclaimers out of the way, on to the projected standings. These are the combined results for all five projection systems. The standings are rounded to the nearest win so if the total W-L doesn’t add up to 2430-2430 that’s why.

As noted earlier, this is NOT saying that you can win the NL West by winning 87 games. It’s saying that the team that finished in first most frequently in that division averaged 87 wins over hundreds of thousands of seasons. Here are the average win totals for each spot in each division.

Place

ALE

ALC

ALW

NLE

NLC

NLW

1

94

91

95

94

92

92

2

89

84

89

87

85

87

3

85

79

83

80

81

83

4

81

74

73

73

76

78

5

75

66

60

66

70

71

WC1

91

90

WC2

87

86

Here is how each division broke down in terms of percentages using the aforementioned pie charts.

In the AL East, we’ve got the mostly tightly bunched group of teams in baseball, with just 10 wins separating Toronto at the top and Baltimore at the bottom. Toronto and Tampa Bay look like they’re neck and neck as of right now. The Yankees are already ravaged by injuries and at this point it doesn’t seem like it would take a lot for them to end up having a losing season and even finish last. Should they lose Robinson Cano or CC Sabathia for any significant amount of time that may be exactly what happens. Boston has improved quite a bit from where they were at the end of last season, although they apparently still have a ways to go. The projections are expecting a big regression from Baltimore, although they have enough talented young players with upside that they could beat their projections by quite a bit.

The AL Central basically looks like Detroit and everyone else. Kansas City and Cleveland are jockeying behind the Tigers. It’ll be interesting to see what the Indians get out of Scott Kazmir, who did not have a Steamer projection and projected pretty poorly in all the other systems. He’s throwing harder than he was when last seen in the majors and could surprise some people. For the Royals, it looks like Big Game James may not get into many big games this year, although stranger things have happened. The White Sox are projected to fall off a bit from last season, and the Twins look like they aren’t going to be very good.

There’s a new floormat in the AL West, and it’s the Houston Astros. Can they lose 100+ games for the third year in a row? The projections think they can. Houston projects to be so bad that they have essentially balanced out the league difference between the AL and NL. Last year, the AL went 1150-1118 thanks to interleague play. If you add Houston’s 55-107 to that you get a record of 1205-1225. Los Anaheim looks like the favorite here and project to win more games than any other team in baseball, with Texas a strong second. The Angels do have some concerns in their rotation, which could open the door for the Rangers. Oakland projects to fall back a bit from last year, but still should be in contention. Seattle still doesn’t look particularly good, although they should score some more runs this year, which is something.

The Nationals project as favorites in the NL East, especially now that the restrictions are off Stephen Strasburg. The Braves aren’t quite at their level, but project to be pretty good as well. The Phillies appear to be showing their age, and if Roy Halladay doesn’t bounce back they could be in trouble. The Mets don’t look good to me, especially with Johan Santana looking iffy and the Marlins may be as bad as the Astros. If Placido Polanco is hitting cleanup to ‘protect’ Giancarlo Stanton, it’s hard to see them winning 60 games.

In the Central, the Reds look like the clear favorite. The Cardinals were closer before losing Chris Carpenter and Rafael Furcal, but they seem like the second best team in the division. Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are neck and neck with each other and the Cubs look to be bringing up the rear.

In the West, the Dodgers are spending money like there’s no tomorrow but I’m not so sure they’re spending it all that well. They project a hair better than San Francisco but given the margin of error inherent in projections there’s really no difference in their projections. The Diamondbacks had a bizarre offseason and losing Adam Eaton for two months hurts, but they should be in the mix if a few things go their way. The Padres look a bit better than I expected, although still not good and the Rockies stink.

Usually there’s a surprise team or two in here but this year nothing really stands out. In general it seems that aside from a handful of really bad teams we’re seeing more parity. Between that and the second wild card you can pretty much see any team in baseball sneaking into the postseason. Except the Astros.

And there you have it. The 2013 projection blowout. Results are not guaranteed.

On an unrelated note, our sister site, the Replacement Level Red Sox launches today. Check them out at replacementlevelredsox.com.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Since I was curious about how the big trade between Kansas City and Tampa Bay affected the AL East, I ran some projected standings based on rosters as of last night. As the title says, this is extremely early and completely useless so think of it more as a goof than anything too serious. So using CAIRO v0.2 and the depth charts from MLB Depth Charts and Rotochamp as a rough gauge of playing time, here’s how the 2013 MLB season looks as of December 10.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

NEW YORK (WFAN/AP) — CC Sabathia found the whole experience of his first trip to the disabled list with the Yankees a little “embarrassing,” and he is looking forward to making his first start in more than two weeks.

Brett Gardner might have to wait even longer to return from an elbow injury.

Sabathia will make his first start since June 24 on Tuesday night against Toronto. Out with a groin strain, he says he’s feeling well enough to pitch as long as he needs to and thinks the time off might have been more beneficial to his left arm than the groin.
...
Gardner was sore a day after he had four at-bats in a three-inning simulated game and was being kept off the field Monday. The speedy outfielder has already had two setbacks in his recovery from a strained elbow that has sidelined him since April 18.

At this point, Gardner may do the unthinkable and break Damaso Marte’s record for setbacks in a season. Are we comfortable with a platoon of Andruw Jones/Raul Ibanez and DeWayne Wise on defense for the rest of the year? Jones has a .339 wOBA vs. RHP this year and Ibanez has a .338 wOBA vs. LHP. The average AL LF has a wOBA of .331, so assuming that Jones and Ibanez can keep up what they’ve done the Yankees would be slightly better than average on offense although they probably give away some of that on defense. They can use Wise in spots where defense can be leveraged more optimally I guess.

It seems like a seller’s market right now with so many teams still having a reasonable chance at the second wild card, so I don’t know who’s available and what the price will be. Here are how I have each teams’ odds of qualifying for the postseason as of this morning.

TM

PS%

Yankees

93.2%

Rangers

92.2%

Nationals

83.0%

Reds

78.7%

Braves

71.5%

Giants

61.8%

White Sox

60.7%

Angels

59.3%

Cardinals

58.8%

Pirates

46.6%

Tigers

45.8%

Red Sox

43.2%

Dodgers

32.9%

Rays

32.0%

Indians

27.9%

Diamondbacks

25.0%

Mets

20.2%

Athletics

19.2%

Blue Jays

17.4%

Brewers

11.5%

Orioles

6.3%

Marlins

4.6%

Phillies

4.1%

Royals

1.8%

Rockies

1.0%

Mariners

0.8%

Twins

0.3%

Cubs

0.3%

Padres

0.3%

Astros

-

I’d probably say any team under 20% should be a seller, but they may feel differently. So who may be available from those teams, and what would they cost?

Friday, June 15, 2012

The two hottest teams in baseball face each other as the Washington Nationals welcome the New York Yankees to the nation’s capital. Each team is riding a six-game winning streak and sits in first place in their respective divisions, making this the must-watch interleague matchup of the weekend.

Excitement over the Yankees’ rare appearance in D.C. is multiplied by the early-season success of the Nationals, who have the second best record in baseball and come into the three-game series with a better record than the Yankees. The Nats are in the middle of a five-series run through the dangerous AL East, and the team returns home following a perfect six-game roadtrip to Boston and Toronto.

I’m looking forward to this series, although I had a morbid curiosity to see how the Yankees would do against Stephen Strasburg. I’ve got the Nationals now projected to finish the season at 92-70 with a 58.2% chance at taking their divison and with overall postseason qualifying odds of 78.3%. The only two teams with higher odds are the Rangers (94-68) at 88.8% and the Yankees (93-69) at 81.8%.

This is where I point and laugh at Cliff Lee again, BTW. Sure, he’s making more money per start than I make in a year, but we have the same number of wins and he’s on a worse team than my favorite team…

Monday, June 4, 2012

2012 MLB Projected Standings and Postseason Odds through June 3

It’s been a while since I last ran these, so here’s how things look as of this morning. Team projections are based about 2/3 on their average pre-season projection from here and 1/3 on YTD performance in component runs scored and allowed, with some adjustments for roster changes and injuries.

The Yankees have regained their rightful place at the top of the division, although they can lose that tomorrow pretty easily. They’re projecting to end the year almost five wins worse than they originally projected to, but at least so far no one aside from Texas in the AL looks like they’re likely to be much better.

The biggest surprise for me here is the White Sox, who are nine games ahead of their pre-season projections and now have a greater than 50% chance at their division. There is little evidence of luck in their component stats, so they haven’t gotten lucky in terms of wins vs. actual performance so far this year. Whether it will continue is the question, but no one else in their division looks all that great so why not?

I am getting way too much schadenfreude out of the Phillies now projecting to fourth and Cliff Lee having 0 wins despite a 3.00 ERA. Good choice Cliff! THe Nationals now hold a slight edge over the Braves in a pretty balanced division from top to bottom.

The Reds have passed St. Louis in the NL Central, which currently looks like a two team race. The Cubs and Padres are probably duking it out for worst team in baseball, which should please Twins and Astros fans.

The Dodgers are still the biggest overall gainer vs. pre-season projections although now it appears they’ll be neck and neck with San Francisco for the NL West.

There are still four months left, so a lot of this can/will change. So consider it more of a checkpoint than a prediction.

Remember how the Yankees’ starting pitching was supposed to be a strength? Now they’re hoping a 40 year old who hasn’t pitched in a year can ride in and save the day.

CC should be fine. I think Nova’s a good bet for continued success thanks to the big improvement in his peripherals. Whether that makes him a 2 or a 3 I don’t know, but it’s probably safer to think he’s a 3. Kuroda will also be ok I think, but I don’t think he’s a 2 in the AL. It’d be nice if Phil Hughes wasn’t awful, because with Michael Pineda looking less and less likely to pitch this year Andy Pettitte could in theory fill one hole between Hughes and Freddy Garcia, but he can’t fill two. My guess is Garcia’s start on Saturday will be his last for this turn in the rotation.

Despite what they’ve shown to date I’d bet a reasonable amount of money the Yankees will not remain the second worst starting rotation in MLB by the end of the year. I think they have a chance to crack the top 20.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

How have the first two weeks of the 2012 MLB season changed team projections?

We’re roughly about 10% of the way throught the 2012 regular season, which is a pretty small sample size to make sweeping observations about how good or bad teams are. That doesn’t mean that what’s happened to this point isn’t important, because it is. I wanted to see what teams have seen the biggest shifts in their outlooks based on how they projected coming into the year compared what they have done since.

The way I looked at this involves three basic steps.

1) Get 2012 projections. In this case I’m using the average of the 2012 MLB projection blowout that I ran at the beginning of April.
2) Estimate revised team strength. For now, this is just a basic weighted average of the team’s projections heading into the year and their Pythagenpat performance to this point. I’m not making any adjustments for injuries/roster changes/etc., yet, although as we get deeper into the season I’ll probably do that.
3) Run the rest of the 2012 MLB season through my Monte Carlo simulator and see what happens. This includes a variable that alters team strength in each iteration to account for things that projections can’t account for.

Good thing for Cliff Lee he signed with the young upstart Phillies instead of the old decrepit Yankees. And remember how the Rangers and Angels looked to be neck and neck heading into the year? Yeah. The Dodgers seem to have snuck their way into the division race now, but other than that the division standings look pretty similar to how they did entering the season.

And here’s a chart that shows the changes in revised team wins projections for each team.

TM

W+/-

Rangers

8.4

Dodgers

8.1

Cardinals

7.2

Nationals

3.8

Indians

3.6

Tigers

2.9

Braves

2.3

Astros

1.9

White Sox

1.6

Pirates

1.5

Brewers

1.2

Giants

0.6

Mets

0.2

Orioles

0.1

Blue Jays

-0.5

Yankees

-0.8

Rockies

-1.2

Diamondbacks

-1.3

Phillies

-1.4

Mariners

-1.5

Twins

-1.6

Marlins

-1.8

Rays

-2.0

Reds

-2.9

Cubs

-3.2

Padres

-3.5

Athletics

-4.1

Royals

-4.8

Angels

-5.1

Red Sox

-7.6

The Rangers have been destroying the competition and look like they’re probably the best team in baseball. The Dodgers and Cardinals are the biggest positive surprises in the National League so far. The Angels are the biggest disappointment in the AL.

But the Red Sox have to be the most pleasant surprise in baseball for me.

CAIRO 2012 v1.0 and Final Pre-season MLB Standings Projection

Here are the standings and of course, the pie charts. I should be posting more projected standings from other systems later today, so I’ll save the disclaimers and explanations for after that’s all done.

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PS%

W 1 Std

AL East

NYA

96

66

848

713

52.8%

19.6%

11.1%

83.5%

86 - 106

AL East

BOS

91

71

857

751

23.7%

21.0%

16.1%

60.8%

81 - 101

AL East

TAM

91

71

765

667

22.4%

25.7%

14.9%

63.0%

81 - 101

AL East

TOR

79

83

771

793

0.8%

2.4%

3.1%

6.2%

69 - 89

AL East

BAL

70

92

736

838

0.4%

0.1%

0.5%

1.0%

60 - 80

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PS%

W 1 Std

AL Central

DET

87

75

803

741

55.2%

1.3%

10.3%

66.8%

77 - 97

AL Central

CLE

84

78

759

721

36.4%

2.4%

9.3%

48.0%

74 - 94

AL Central

CHA

74

88

699

806

3.0%

0.2%

0.8%

4.0%

64 - 84

AL Central

KC

73

89

682

754

3.6%

0.2%

0.8%

4.6%

63 - 83

AL Central

MIN

71

91

725

815

1.8%

0.0%

0.3%

2.1%

61 - 81

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PS%

W 1 Std

AL West

TEX

93

69

809

685

54.2%

12.7%

17.3%

84.1%

83 - 103

AL West

LAA

92

70

739

640

44.7%

14.3%

14.6%

73.6%

82 - 102

AL West

OAK

74

88

685

753

0.5%

0.3%

0.9%

1.7%

64 - 84

AL West

SEA

73

89

669

742

0.6%

0.0%

0.6%

1.2%

63 - 83

AL

WC1

93

AL

WC2

90

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PS%

W 1 Std

NL East

PHI

91

71

690

610

51.0%

15.1%

9.0%

75.0%

81 - 101

NL East

ATL

86

76

705

664

20.5%

16.4%

10.2%

47.1%

76 - 96

NL East

WAS

85

77

669

632

17.7%

12.8%

9.7%

40.1%

75 - 95

NL East

FLA

83

79

710

694

10.3%

8.6%

7.0%

25.9%

73 - 93

NL East

NYN

74

88

665

737

0.7%

0.8%

0.8%

2.2%

64 - 84

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PS%

W 1 Std

NL Central

STL

89

73

728

654

47.2%

11.1%

9.4%

67.7%

79 - 99

NL Central

MIL

86

76

695

646

29.2%

11.6%

11.8%

52.6%

76 - 96

NL Central

CIN

85

77

707

670

22.7%

10.8%

11.2%

44.8%

75 - 95

NL Central

PIT

71

91

653

743

0.6%

0.3%

1.0%

1.9%

61 - 81

NL Central

CHN

71

91

648

748

0.3%

0.3%

0.3%

0.9%

61 - 81

NL Central

HOU

61

101

584

752

0.0%

0.0%

0.0%

0.0%

51 - 71

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PS%

W 1 Std

NL West

SF

85

77

663

634

36.5%

5.2%

10.2%

51.9%

75 - 95

NL West

ARI

84

78

692

674

33.9%

3.0%

9.2%

46.0%

74 - 94

NL West

COL

82

80

755

750

21.2%

2.9%

6.6%

30.7%

72 - 92

NL West

SD

76

86

635

674

4.1%

0.9%

1.6%

6.6%

66 - 86

NL West

LAN

75

87

622

671

4.3%

0.3%

2.5%

7.1%

65 - 85

NL

WC1

90

NL

WC2

88

Div: Percentage of times team won divisionWC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild cardPS%: Total percentage team qualified for the postseason (DIV + WC1 + WC2)W 1 Std: Wins within one standard deviation

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

CAIRO 2012 v0.5 and More Somewhat Useless Projected Standings

I’ve uploaded the latest version of the 2012 MLB CAIRO projections. They can be downloaded here.

The only changes from version 0.4 were moving players who were signed/traded to their new teams. I think this will probably be the last release until right before Opening Day unless I find any issues.

I figured since I’ve updated again I’d run another set of projected standings so here is what they look like.

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

AL East

NYA

97

65

844

692

54.3%

22.5%

8.0%

84.8%

AL East

TAM

92

70

772

660

23.2%

27.4%

14.1%

64.8%

AL East

BOS

92

70

862

745

22.1%

27.0%

15.3%

64.4%

AL East

TOR

78

84

758

795

0.4%

1.2%

2.6%

4.1%

AL East

BAL

70

92

734

847

0.0%

0.1%

0.1%

0.2%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

AL Central

DET

88

74

814

741

60.7%

1.6%

12.7%

75.0%

AL Central

CLE

84

78

763

729

32.1%

0.8%

9.5%

42.4%

AL Central

CHA

74

88

705

805

3.5%

0.2%

1.0%

4.7%

AL Central

KC

74

88

687

762

3.3%

0.0%

0.8%

4.1%

AL Central

MIN

67

95

720

861

0.4%

0.0%

0.1%

0.5%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

AL West

TEX

92

70

812

695

51.2%

8.6%

17.0%

76.8%

AL West

LAA

91

71

741

653

47.0%

9.9%

16.6%

73.5%

AL West

OAK

76

86

685

735

0.7%

0.6%

1.7%

2.9%

AL West

SEA

74

88

673

729

1.2%

0.2%

1.0%

2.4%

AL

WC1

94

AL

WC2

91

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

NL East

PHI

92

70

701

605

60.8%

12.4%

9.1%

82.2%

NL East

WAS

86

76

676

625

18.6%

18.2%

9.1%

45.8%

NL East

ATL

85

77

700

676

13.2%

12.5%

11.0%

36.7%

NL East

FLA

82

80

708

699

7.3%

8.0%

7.1%

22.3%

NL East

NYN

75

87

670

733

0.3%

1.2%

1.8%

3.2%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

NL Central

STL

90

72

737

654

47.8%

12.4%

10.3%

70.5%

NL Central

CIN

87

75

715

665

27.3%

11.6%

12.1%

51.0%

NL Central

MIL

86

76

696

645

24.6%

12.3%

11.7%

48.6%

NL Central

CHN

71

91

650

745

0.2%

0.2%

0.2%

0.5%

NL Central

PIT

68

94

649

764

0.1%

0.0%

0.3%

0.4%

NL Central

HOU

60

102

584

773

0.1%

0.1%

0.1%

0.3%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

NL West

SF

85

77

663

630

38.1%

3.1%

8.4%

49.5%

NL West

ARI

84

78

659

634

33.5%

3.6%

8.9%

46.1%

NL West

COL

81

81

761

759

18.3%

3.0%

6.6%

27.9%

NL West

SD

76

86

633

668

5.2%

0.8%

2.2%

8.2%

NL West

LAN

75

87

621

669

4.9%

0.7%

1.8%

7.3%

NL

WC1

90

NL

WC2

88

Div: Percentage of times team won divisionWC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild card

These look more realistic to me than the last set I ran with Marcel. Probably a bit high on the Yankees, but since CAIRO was created to make the Yankees look better than they are that stands to reason.

I am a bit surprised that Washington now projects better than Atlanta, even if it’s just a one game edge. The only other major differences from this and the Marcel version is St. Louis at the top of the NL Central and San Francisco and Arizona above Colorado, both of which make sense to me.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Still Too Early 2012 MLB Standings Projection

Instead of running these with CAIRO this time I used Marcel, mainly out of curiosity in seeing what an unbiased projection that was not created to make the Yankees look better than they are would say.

It says this.

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

AL East

NYA

92

70

785

682

45.3%

20.3%

10.4%

76.0%

AL East

BOS

90

72

830

750

27.9%

26.1%

10.8%

64.8%

AL East

TAM

88

74

717

646

23.7%

21.2%

12.2%

57.1%

AL East

TOR

81

81

723

727

3.0%

6.9%

6.8%

16.7%

AL East

BAL

70

92

694

806

0.0%

0.1%

0.2%

0.3%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

AL Central

DET

84

78

747

708

43.0%

2.4%

10.1%

55.4%

AL Central

CLE

83

79

722

708

30.6%

2.9%

7.8%

41.3%

AL Central

CHA

79

83

686

703

15.2%

1.5%

4.2%

20.9%

AL Central

KC

79

83

691

714

10.8%

1.9%

4.1%

16.9%

AL Central

MIN

68

94

693

813

0.4%

0.0%

0.1%

0.5%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

AL West

LAA

87

75

719

663

43.7%

6.1%

11.4%

61.2%

AL West

TEX

87

75

765

707

38.2%

6.9%

13.4%

58.6%

AL West

OAK

82

80

682

674

14.9%

3.1%

7.4%

25.3%

AL West

SEA

76

86

649

689

3.2%

0.7%

1.6%

5.5%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

NL East

PHI

90

72

689

615

44.8%

16.5%

10.7%

72.0%

NL East

ATL

89

73

668

608

38.2%

19.2%

9.9%

67.3%

NL East

WAS

83

79

645

634

10.8%

10.3%

8.1%

29.2%

NL East

FLA

80

82

682

690

5.7%

5.2%

5.4%

16.3%

NL East

NYN

74

88

630

680

0.6%

1.5%

1.2%

3.2%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

NL Central

CIN

89

73

719

647

60.4%

8.4%

10.9%

79.7%

NL Central

STL

84

78

708

681

24.6%

10.7%

7.0%

42.2%

NL Central

MIL

81

81

678

672

13.1%

6.7%

7.7%

27.5%

NL Central

PIT

72

90

657

732

1.6%

0.2%

1.0%

2.8%

NL Central

CHN

70

92

668

761

0.4%

0.2%

0.4%

1.0%

NL Central

HOU

66

96

617

749

0.0%

0.1%

0.0%

0.1%

Div

Team

W

L

RF

RA

Div

WC 1

WC 2

PL%

NL West

COL

85

77

749

711

32.1%

6.4%

10.9%

49.4%

NL West

ARI

85

77

685

656

30.8%

7.3%

10.8%

48.9%

NL West

SF

85

77

629

606

29.6%

5.4%

11.3%

46.3%

NL West

LAN

76

86

618

659

4.1%

1.5%

2.7%

8.2%

NL West

SD

75

87

608

653

3.4%

0.6%

2.5%

6.4%

Div: Percent of time team won divisionWC 1: Percent of time team won first wild cardWC 2: Percent of time team won second wild card

We still don’t know if there will be a second wild card yet, so you can chop off that column and subtract that percentage from the team’s over playoff percentage.

Because Marcel regresses more heavily than other projections and because it assumes every one who hasn’t played in MLB projects as league average, you see a tighter spread here than you’ll see in other projected standings. The standard deviation for team wins in my last CAIRO projections was about 9. In this version it’s 7.1. That may be more realistic if you think about how little we really know about how good/bad players and teams are, even though what will actually happen in 2012 will show a much bigger spread more in line with other projected standings.

Here are the average win totals for the placings in each division and for the two wild cards.

Div

Place

Avg W

AL East

1

96

AL East

2

91

AL East

3

86

AL East

4

80

AL East

5

69

Div

Avg W

AL Central

1

89

AL Central

2

83

AL Central

3

79

AL Central

4

75

AL Central

5

67

Div

Avg W

AL West

1

92

AL West

2

86

AL West

3

81

AL West

4

74

AL WC 1

91

AL WC2

88

Div

Avg W

NL East

1

94

NL East

2

88

NL East

3

83

NL East

4

78

NL East

5

72

Div

Avg W

NL Central

1

92

NL Central

2

85

NL Central

3

80

NL Central

4

74

NL Central

5

69

NL Central

6

63

Div

Avg W

NL West

1

91

NL West

2

85

NL West

3

81

NL West

4

77

NL West

5

71

NL WC1

89

NL WC2

87

What this shows is that on average a team needed 96 wins to win the AL East, etc.,.

Some obvious things to consider would be:

- the difference between Yu Darvish (and other imports) and a league average pitcher
- prospects who project better than league average
- players who switched to parks that will affect their projections since Marcel does not park-adjust

Despite all that, the ordinal rankings seem reasonable. The only differences between this and CAIRO in that regard are that I have St. Louis ahead of Cincinnati and the Diamondbacks and Giants ahead of Colorado.

This is current through Francisco Cordero signing with Toronto, and assumes Prince Fielder at 1B and Miguel Cabrera playing a terrible version of 3B for Detroit in 70% of their games, and DHing in 25% of them.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

I’m releasing CAIRO 2012 v 0.3 today which mainly fixes a problem with a handful of pitchers like Alexi Ogando and Ross Ohlendorf and moves players to new teams where applicable. I figure it’d be a good time to run some projected standings even though they are too early to be of any real value.

DISCLAIMER: This is very limited in telling us much about how 2012 will play out for a large number of reasons.

1) There are still a lot of roster changes coming. This may give us some sense of how the offseason has impacted teams to this point and it also shows us how things might look if nothing changed from now until April. Which won’t happen.

2) It’s too early to construct meaningful rosters for a lot of teams, so these projections will favor the teams that have essentially completed their 2012 rosters.

3) In addition to that, projection systems are inherently limited. They are designed to estimate a player’s true talent based on what they’ve done so far and also by factoring in things like age and how similar players have performed in the past. They will generally be in the ballpark for the general population of MLB players, but they can miss significantly on individual players which can obviously affect certain teams more heavily than others.

Anyway, using the depth charts from the wonderful MLB Depth Charts and includng playing time from players on the 40 man roster who don’t necessarily figure to be part of the the opening day 25 man rosters to account for organizational depth and playing out next season 100,000 times, here’s how CAIRO v0.3 sees things as of December 13, 2011. These were run with Aramis Ramirez as a Brewer, but I didn’t remove any of the non-tendered players from yesterday from their rosters.

Date

12/13/2011

Iterations

100000

American League

TM

W

L

RS

RA

Div

WC

PL

Yankees

94

68

862

740

59.0%

16.8%

75.9%

Red Sox

91

71

868

763

31.1%

26.1%

57.2%

Rays

85

77

717

654

9.5%

11.8%

21.4%

Blue Jays

75

87

773

817

0.3%

0.6%

0.9%

Orioles

68

94

741

853

0.0%

0.1%

0.1%

TM

W

L

RS

RA

Div

WC

PL

Tigers

89

73

780

703

54.3%

4.7%

59.0%

Indians

87

75

751

696

40.8%

5.9%

46.6%

White Sox

77

85

723

795

3.3%

1.5%

4.8%

Royals

73

89

684

760

1.6%

0.2%

1.8%

Twins

66

96

698

829

0.0%

-

-

TM

W

L

RS

RA

Div

WC

PL

Rangers

93

69

812

697

58.0%

13.7%

71.6%

Angels

90

72

720

640

39.5%

16.6%

56.1%

Mariners

77

85

653

668

2.3%

2.0%

4.2%

Athletics

71

91

636

686

0.3%

0.1%

0.4%

National League

TM

W

L

RS

RA

Div

WC

PL

Phillies

92

70

681

598

60.6%

10.5%

71.1%

Braves

87

75

711

662

24.9%

13.8%

38.7%

Marlins

81

81

716

695

8.2%

4.4%

12.6%

Nationals

80

82

665

668

4.9%

3.2%

8.1%

Mets

76

86

669

710

1.4%

1.6%

3.0%

TM

W

L

RS

RA

Div

WC

PL

Brewers

92

70

700

646

52.5%

14.3%

66.7%

Cardinals

90

72

708

648

36.8%

19.3%

56.2%

Reds

84

78

724

704

10.1%

10.8%

20.9%

Cubs

74

88

649

727

0.3%

1.1%

1.4%

Pirates

70

92

656

758

0.4%

-

0.4%

Astros

60

102

569

759

0.0%

-

-

TM

W

L

RS

RA

Div

WC

PL

Giants

88

74

656

613

46.3%

6.4%

52.7%

Diamondbacks

86

76

647

613

31.2%

6.4%

37.6%

Padres

81

81

620

613

11.3%

4.6%

15.9%

Dodgers

79

83

624

644

7.9%

2.9%

10.8%

Rockies

76

86

726

776

3.4%

0.6%

4.0%

The most shocking thing here is the Astros projecting to win 62 games IMO. I also am amused by the fact that the Marlins don’t really project any better than the Nationals despite all their largesse this offseason.

Also, be aware that I haven’t accounted for the stupid new second wild card thing yet, since I am not certain that it will be implemented for this upcoming season, and rremember that this is more for fun than utility and take it in the appropriate spirit.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

“It’s not gonna happen,” Posada said Wednesday night at a Manhattan function for The Jorge Posada Foundation. “I don’t think there is even a percentage of a chance that I can come back.”

The free agent says he’s not bitter with the organization he has played for his entire career. He said five or six teams have shown interest in his services.

The more I think about it, the less I’d mind if Posada tried to play another year and got a job somewhere. It won’t take away what he did in pinstripes, and it allows him a chance to go out on his terms. I think he’s still got something left, and if circumstances allowed it, it’d be great to see him get one more game at the Stadium, even if it came in a visitor’s uniform. Perhaps there will be real fans in attendance instead of the stuffed suits that attended ALDS Game 5 and ignored the fact that it was likely Posada’s last game in pinstripes.

On an unrelated note, scary news out of Venezuela, where Nationals’ catcher Wilson Ramos has been kidnapped. There have been a few kidnapping related incidents involving MLB players’ families including Henry Blanco’s brother, Yorvit Torrealba’s son and Victor Zambrano’s mother. Let’s hope for a happy ending here.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

More on Run Differentials

Last week I looked at the Yankees’ run differential and made the point that actual runs scored and allowed can be a bit misleading, and that it’s probably more instructive to look at the context neutral value of the offensive events for and against a team to get a better sense of how good they have actually been. For the hell of it I decided to look at this for all teams in MLB as of this morning.

Team

RS

RA

bRS

bRA

RS - bRS

RA - bRA

Gap

Pirates

436

469

415

503

21

-34

55

Yankees

603

436

577

455

26

-19

45

Padres

431

438

413

448

18

-10

28

Reds

542

510

522

511

20

-1

21

Phillies

504

375

500

391

4

-16

20

Blue Jays

534

522

515

522

19

0

18

Braves

476

426

467

428

9

-2

11

Royals

505

551

509

566

-4

-15

11

Diamondbacks

516

502

499

493

17

9

9

Nationals

449

471

445

475

4

-4

7

Rays

485

452

481

453

4

-1

5

Angels

441

419

457

439

-16

-20

5

Cardinals

552

500

538

490

14

10

4

Indians

478

486

458

469

20

17

3

Rockies

528

536

519

529

9

7

2

Twins

449

559

420

532

29

27

2

Athletics

442

456

430

440

12

16

-5

White Sox

453

468

451

457

2

11

-9

Mets

518

507

525

504

-7

3

-10

Red Sox

625

479

628

472

-3

7

-11

Dodgers

418

456

429

454

-11

2

-13

Marlins

462

503

471

497

-9

6

-15

Mariners

376

439

362

409

14

30

-16

Rangers

589

490

582

466

7

24

-17

Brewers

512

486

508

462

4

24

-19

Astros

437

574

451

568

-14

6

-20

Orioles

462

598

473

586

-11

12

-23

Cubs

474

571

481

552

-7

19

-26

Giants

399

411

414

399

-15

12

-28

Tigers

508

514

512

484

-4

30

-35

RS/RA: Actual runs scored/allowedbRS/bRAlinear weights batting runs scored/allowed.Gap: RS - bRS minus RA - bRA. The larger the number, the more a team has outplayed their peripherals. Basically, positive is bad here and negative is good.

What this table is saying is that, for example, the Yankees have scored about 26 more runs and allowed 19 fewer runs than their peripheral stats say they should have. That doesn’t mean you should subtract 4.5 wins from their total on the season. It just means that their Pythagenpat record/run differential is a bit misleading. In the Yankees’ case they’ve got 73 Pythag wins and 69 actual wins, so they haven’t really taken advantage of this in actual wins.

Contrast that with Pittsburgh, who’ve stumbled lately. They were playing over their heads all year, and unfortunately the correction has been ugly. At 55-59, they’re still two wins ahead of their 53-61 Pythag record, and if you look at that gap they are probably not even that good.